Monday, July 10, 2017

Thank you Ogbuagu Anikwe for your emotional response to the £20 social grants to Biafrans after the war by the federal government of Nigeria. The danger in being emotional on this issue is that one tends to be one-eyed, looking and seeing only one picture in a two figured object.

I do not know on which law you based your request that special privilege should be granted to the Biafrans so that they would be able to exchange raw-cash of old Nigerian currency at the end of the civil war, and two years after the old currency had been declared illegal, both in Biafra and in Nigeria. If you have forgotten, I can remind you that Biafra produced her own currency (Biafra Pound) which came into use as from 28 January 1968 and Biafra did not only simultaneously ban the use of Nigerian Pounds within its territory but ordered all Biafrans in possession of the Nigerian pounds to exchange them immediately for Biafran Pounds. Regardless of any sentiment, anybody who deliberately possessed old Nigerian Pounds after the duration of exchange to new notes in 1968, both in Biafra and Nigeria, were criminals according to Biafran and the Nigerian law.

I am yet to understand on which legal platform you based your demand that anyone could just walk into a bank and tell the account officials that he/she had money deposited in the bank but his/her passbook, cheques and last statements of account had been lost but the bank should allow the client to withdraw money from the bank. If you, Mr. Anikwe should walk into a bank to withdraw money, the onus is on you to prove, documentarily, that you have an account in the bank and if you cannot, you may even be arrested for trying to defraud the bank under false pretences.

Contrary to your assertion, I am not the one insisting that the banking habit of most Nigerians, including the Igbos, before the outbreak of the war in 1967 was negligible. Tony O. Elumelu, a Nigerian Entrepreneur, Philanthropist and Chairman of Heirs Holdings Limited, which is a pan-African proprietary investment company committed to advancing economic prosperity and social wealth across Africa said, while speaking about 'Africapitalism' as an economic philosophy in May 2013, that in Nigeria with a population of more than 110 million people in 1997, fewer than 10% had bank accounts. Tony O. Elumelu had been one of the key figures in the United Bank of Africa (UBA) since 2005. If fewer than 10% had bank accounts in Nigeria in 1997, the question to be asked is how many percentage of Nigerians had bank accounts in 1967? For me, I think it is dishonest, and perhaps a planned intention to defraud to pretend that all adult Igbos had bank accounts in Nigeria in 1967 but were denied access to their accounts after the end of the war because they lost their account books while in Biafra. The coincidence that all the Biafrans lost their account books in Biafra is suspicious.

Your claim that Biafrans who came out of the war started with nothing ignored the fact that purchasing power in Nigeria has always been concentrated in the hands of few elites at the top of each ethnic group. Therefore, millions of Nigerians who were not in Biafra had the same purchasing power as ordinary Biafrans when the war ended. What is the purchasing power of an average Nigerian today and how regular is the payment of monthly salaries, wages or pensions? Like in all wars, average Nigerians suffered but the elites, including the Igbos, did not.

Thank you, Mobolaji and Salimonu, for clearly establishing even when you didn't set out to do so,

that returnee Biafrans who came forward with old Nigerian currency from the enclave were denied the opportunity to have those exchanged for new Nigerian notes because they failed to exchange them within the window allowed by the CBN – and in spite of the fact that there was a law that could not have allowed them to do so even if they wanted to at that time; and

that returnee Biafrans whose monies were in Nigerian banks during the war (and who therefore would not have had any need to exchange them since this was not cash and the banks would do the conversion automatically) also were not able to get back their deposits as long as they were unable to come up with their passbooks or cheques – since their account records with the banks were (conveniently?) destroyed during the war.

For me, the facts have now been clearly established with your testimonies.

I agree that it is a master stroke to have asked returnees to come forward with both Biafran and Nigerian currencies and, having captured them all, then determine that there was no way Nigerian could accommodate the exchange of the old (Nigerian) and the illegitimate (Biafran) currencies, thus paving the way for a kind and considerate £20 "dash," aka ex-gratia.

Since Kadiri continues to insist that only a handful of Igbos patronized banks prior to the war, is it then unreasonable to conclude that MAJORITY of Igbos began life after the Civil War with either NOTHING at all (since Biafran notes were rightly not considered legal tender) or made do with the £20 ex-gratia? Who wants to disagree?

I suspect that Bolaji probably would, since I notice that he has introduced another idea that will be deployed in the future to show that returnee Biafrans were paid other monies, in addition to the ex-gratia. We await full details of that one.

Guess what? At the end of what would appear to be mockery of amateurish attempts by a desperate people to pick up their lives after surviving a horrendous war and their bumbling efforts to reap where they once sowed, we appear to have come full circle to the original proposition, which is that there was a deliberate, well thought-out strategy to ensure that those who misplaced or lost evidence of account ownership with banks were systematically dispossessed of their deposits as the banks, acting alone or under instructions, claimed that their deposit account records no longer existed.

Ogbuagu

On Sunday, July 9, 2017 at 11:07:38 AM UTC-5, Bolaji Aluko wrote:

SK:

You raise new valid points:

(1) Chief JJE violated Biafran law, and only escaped prosecution because the secession failed in the nick of time.

(2) How did he get the old Nigerian pounds sef: before (self and family savings) , during (trade and banking operations, including looting proceeds) , or after the war (collection on behalf of others) ? Serial numbers could have helped to prove how if that issue had seriously come up. God save him that it was not traced to Benin loot... Wittingly or unwittingly.

(3) Finally, yes, was Chief JJE physically prevented from exchanging his money on time - or did he willingly sleep on his rights? Or was it a voluntary fund hedging scheme, with all the loss risks involved ?

In any case, I had always wondered why this issue had not been tested in Nigerian courts. Now that I know that it went all the way to our Supreme Court, with the man-mountain - in physique and in law - FRA Williams as Counsel - ironically Awo's first AG and Minister of Justice in Western Region - I am relieved. After 50 years, I doubt if there is new evidence to warrant a revisit. We should avoid a recurrence of fratricide.

Final final, I re-read lawyer Ndibiagu's submission again, and he hinted that those dissatisfied with the Nigerian state, past or present, were somewhat justified - or at least their actions were explainable - in corruptly stealing from the state. For example, the aggrieved by this 20 pounds?.

Is this an old - and continuing - justification, or a new and imaginative one? I remember that Chief Enshrined used to describe Nigeria as a construction in which the ethnic groups sent their sons and daughters to go to Abuja to chop their own and bring some back home. This was due to lack of nationhood. I did not imagine that it was also due to past grievances.

All along the world has been told that millions of Igbo who had bank accounts in Nigeria had balances in their account books reduced to £20 regardless of the higher amounts in the accounts. Against that claim I have submitted that most Igbo, like most Nigerians, never had bank accounts in 1967 when the war broke out and that many Nigerians of that time had their savings under their pillows. The case of Chief J.J. Enweozor against the Central Bank of Nigeria supports my contention. It is said that in response to the directives of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Chief Enweozor on the 7th of April 1970, paid the sum of £26, 659 in old Nigerian currency notes to the bank. It has not been established that the directives given to Chief Enweozor contained a promise to exchange the old Nigerian currency for legal one in circulation. However, he challenged non-issue of new currency to him in exchange for his old ones up to the Supreme Court where it was established that "The exchange of the old Nigeria currency for new one in the East Central State of Nigeria was never authorized by law." We must remember that when the Midwest was invaded, August 9 - September 20, 1967, the vault of Central Bank of Nigeria in Benin was plundered by the Biafrans and the source of Chief Enwezor's Nigerian old pounds could not have been unconnected.

The questions I want answered are : (i) Did Decree No. 11 of 1968 state that people trapped in the East central State as a result of the war, could exchange their old Nigerian pounds after the civil war? (ii) If not, why were Biafrans demanding that their old Nigerian pounds be exchanged for new ones two years after the expiration of the time allowed by law for the exchange of the old Nigerian currency for the new one? (iii) Which law did Chief Enweozor follow in keeping his old Nigerian currencies in Biafra when Biafran authority, under which he was governed, announced its own currency (Biafran Pound) on 28 January 1968 and ordered all Biafrans to exchange their Nigerian Pounds for Biafran Pounds immediately? and (iv) Is it not mandatory in law that the Central Bank of Nigeria or any law enforcing agency in Nigeria to seize or confiscate old Nigerian Pounds anywhere they might be found within the country?

I am of the opinion that the old Nigerian Pounds had no value after the exchange exercise for the new one had been completed in 1968. If Chief Enweozor and other Biafrans had any grievances at all against the loss of their Nigerian held currency while in Biafra, they ought to have sued Ojukwu and others for unlawfully preventing them from being in Nigeria to exchange their money within specified time allowed for the exercise.

S. Kadiri

If there was a Resettlement Fund put in place why were some Biafranists unfavourably comparing Nigeria to Americas Marshall Plan as if Nigeria never did anything similar?

Again why do ex-Biafrans want peace time Nigeria to pay for actions of a war time Nigerian dictator who did not get to power through Nigeria's electoral will.

When will Nigeria ask the East for reparations for destruction done to other Nigerians property and Nigerian lives lost by Biafras unilateral invasion of Nigerias territory outside Biafras enclave?

Finally how justifiable is it to call the Biafran enclave a Republic and and on what grounds can such a fictional republic be resusucirated? That is how many elections did Ojukwu win as leader in the enclave, or was he not just a military dictator like Gowon?

Please, please read the account CLEARLY: these were not deposits made and left in banks on the Nigerian side BEFORE the war. Those had no problems whatsoever, provided you could prove account ownership. The monies in contention were deposits of Old Nigerian currency that were asked to be deposited by returnees AFTER the war ended.

Here is the sequence of events:

(1) May 30: Biafra secedes, but Nigerian notes are still legal tender in Biafra. Some Igbo leave some money in Nigerian banks (hoping to return some day) , cash some of their money and take it to Biafra, putting some of that exported miney in banks in Biafra, while keeping some as cash. In fact, Nigerian money trapped in Biafra is gets used to buy arms all over the world.

(2) Towards the end of 1967, Nigeria announces that Nigeria will change its currency, and gives a teo-week period for all who wish to change their money. Those within Biafra now have two choices: sneak back to Nigeria, or stay back in Biafra. Most choose to remain.

(3) Biafra announces its own currency immediately - the Biafran pound, with a one-to-one exchange with the Nigerian pound. Those monies in banks in Biafra (which were already deposited as old Nigerian pounds) are now in Biafran pounds. Some Biafrans exchange the old Nigerian pounds notes for Biafran pounds notes, while some still keep their old Nigerian pounds.... Just in case.

(4) When the War ended, one of the first tasks was to find out what to do with those who had old Nigerian notes and Biafran notes. Would old notes be exchanged one-to-one, and at what exchange rate should new Nigerian pound to Biafran notes? So they ask returning Biafrans to deposit their old Nigerian notes and Biafran notes to the CBN to find out how much money we were really talking about . The amount is conceivably so much that there was no way the country could survive... So no value is assigned to old Nigerian notes or Biafran notes, and a 20 pound ex-gratia payment is determined which, if given to every depositor, would be about 60 percent of that year's budget.

Do you get it now?

So before you say that a policy is "grossly unfair", you have to propose an alternative, noting that there was a full country to run following an unplanned war.

You must also understand that there was a multi million pounds Resettlement Fund made available to returning individuals which had nothing to do with deposits. Most returning Biafran returnees, with or without deposits, took advantage of that - but it is more funky to talk about the 20 pounds.

I think we have to give credit to this eminent lawyer for delving more deeply into the issue of £20.00 compensation in exchange for deposits made to banks in the once legitimate old Nigerian currency- no matter how much the client had in his or her bank account before the war.

I have always considered this policy to be grossly unfair.

I have no such consideration for any one who was trying to exchange Biafran currency for the Nigerian notes considering the former was never considered legal tender in Nigeria.

One interesting omission probably deliberate in this account is any mention of Chief Obafemi Awolowo's culpability on this issue.

The Supreme Court settled this thorny issue decades ago on the basis that those who had the full discretion on the matter declined to exercise such discretion.

Whether or not this refusal to exercise their discretionary power was dictated by the prevailing political cum military power of the day remains to be settled.

Thanks mightily for this posting by the eminent - if somewhat quite emotional - lawyer.

I did not know that this issue of non-exchange of old Nigerian and Biafran notes for new Nigerian notes was a Supreme-Court settled matter. So what have we been arguing about? If the most eminent lawyer of that era - Chief. FRA Williams, a Yoruba man for that matter - could not successfully argue that case, no one could. If the then CBN governor, Dr. Clement Isong - an Ibibio of former Biafra territory - could not use his discretion, I wonder who would.

Clearly, the 20 pounds was not considered an exchange at all, but an ex-gratia payment for any returning ex-depositor. I think that the Nigerian government was in a real bind as to what to do with all the money that would have to be paid out, so soon after an unplanned and debilitating war effort.

Once again, thanks for the posting! Ozoemenna! Never again! Ise! Amen!

"I write with reference to your letter (Ref – FRAW/AO/CB/11/71 of 8th October, 1971 to inform you that your client's entitlement as a depositor was £20 ex gratia award authorized by the Federal Government"

Signed by E. N. ISONG Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria

As applied by the Supreme Court of Nigeria in the celebrated case of CHIEF J. J. ENWEOZOR V. CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA (1976)1 ALL NLR PAGE 252 AT PAGE 256.

This letter, dated the 18th day of October, 1971, signed by E. N. ISONG, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, addressed to Chief F. R. A. Williams, an eminent Nigerian Lawyer, is a reply to Chief F. R. A. Williams enquiry from the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria why his Client, Chief J. J. Enweozor, described as a Nigeria citizen ordinarily resident in Onitsha, who in response to the CBN's directive "on the 7th of April, 1970, paid to your bank the sum of £26,659 (Twenty Six Thousand, Six Hundred and Fifty Nine pounds) as per receipt no ESOO5055 dated 7/4/70 in old Nigerian currency notes" is yet to be paid his money in the new currency.

The shameful story is a stressed fact in Nigerian History. Yet it always compels repetition. The fact is that after Chief J. J. Enweozor and his Biafran folks, having been mercilessly massacred in all parts of Nigeria, particularly, the North, a savage and barbaric genocide unleashed on them, 'shooting of everything that moves', applied as a doctrine against them, starvation employed to annihilate the unborn and the children, Gowon, the Nigeria head of State, the architect of their woes, was so kind and so zealous in reconciling with, and rehabilitating them that he gratuitously offered them from the milk of his Gowon – Nigerian heart, a gratuitous £20 (Twenty) pounds in exchange of any amount whatsoever they had ever earned within the Nigeria context.

Of course, neither Chief Enweozor nor his coun

sel, Chief FRA Williams of blessed memory was impressed by this Nigerian-brand of benevolence. Consequently they sought remedy from the court, the supposed last hope for the common man.

The fact of this case is mutual between the parties. It behooves emphasis even at the risk of repetition. As told by Mr. Sule Okponubi, the sole witness of the Central Bank of Nigeria:

"The Federal Government requested the people from the East central State to exchange their currencies, both Biafran and Nigerian. We sent out teams to accept the deposits. This was in 1969/70. After all the deposits had been accepted, the Government directed that the Defendant should make an ex gratia payment of £20 each to all of them. As a result of this direction, the Defendant was not able to exchange the deposited amounts, whether Biafran or Nigerian".

The case was dismissed by Savage J. of the Lagos High Court who, after considering the Decrees and subsidiary legislation governing exchange or conversion of old currency note to new ones, held that "the action was misconceived because the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria had not exercised certain discretionary powers vested in him under the law".

Up to the Nigeria Supreme Court went Chief Enweozor in desperate quest for justice. On hearing the case, the Supreme Court was supremely confounded by the obnoxious provisions of Decree No 11 of 1968, a draconian legislation that surpass the worst in the annals of jurisprudence.

Consequently, the Nigeria Supreme Court in sync with its Nigerian gusto found that the law applicable in this case, the Currency Conversion (South-Eastern and other states) Decree No. 11 of 1968, at all times material to this case is not applicable to the East Central States of Nigeria – The Biafran enclave. The Supreme Court placed reliance on section2 of the Decree which provides inter alia that the Decrees:-

"shall apply to all States of the Federation, so however that nothing in this Decree shall extend its application to …….East Central State……..until a direction of the Head of the Federal Military Government given in such a manner as he may think fit, and in the discretion of the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria published in the Gazette at any time any such discretion is given, or at any time thereafter.

In the characteristic Nigeria swagger, the Supreme Court held that:

"there was no evidence that a discretion had either been given under section 2 or that it had been given and published in the gazette. We must therefore conclude that it has not been established by evidence that Decree No. 11 of 1968 was applicable to the …….East Central State".

Not yet done in curtailing the effrontery of Chief Enweozor in taking Nigeria to court, the Supreme Court, although it acknowledged that it was not necessary for the determination of the appeal before it, waved a sword of Damocles from the Decree in an obvious threat against any similar effrontery by the ilk of Chief Enweozor. Accordingly, the Supreme Court reminded all of the "mischief" aimed at by the stringent provisions of the Decree. The Supreme Court emphasized that the exchange of the Nigerian old currency for new ones can take place "only where so authorized by law" as provided by section 1B of the Decree which created offences in relation to the exchange of currency. Of much significance is sub-section D which made it an offence for any person.

"by any means to move or cause to be moved from a part of Nigeria where the time or extended time for conversion of former currency under this Decree has elapsed, into any part of Nigeria where former currency has not been converted, or as the case may be, action to convert has not commenced or if commenced, has not been completed under this Decree".

The exchange of the old Nigeria currency for new one in the East Central State of Nigeria, as the Supreme Court found, was never "authorized by law".

Accordingly Chief Enweozor and his counsel Chief FRA Williams of the blessed memory came to the rude awakening that in Nigeria, courts are anything but the last hope for the oppressed.

The articulated sadism of this Decree must not be lost on any one. This provision made it impossible for the Biafrans, even in the so called liberated areas, to exchange their old Nigeria currency with the new one or in any way touch or transact with it. Accordingly, another alternative means to genocide was legitimized by the Nigerian law. Those that survive the bullet must perish by starvation. It should also not be forgotten that Gowon at the time of this Decree had put in place an "administrator" for the East Central State of Nigeria. Yet, no positive function of the alleged East Central State Administrator or government was allowed. The only utility of the administrator is in shielding horrendous acts of genocide determinedly carried out by the Nigerian Army.

As St Augustine of Hippo bewailed, "justice being denied, then, what are Kingdoms but great robberies"! In fairness to the Supreme Court Judges, they relied on the prevailing law to reach their judgment. But what cannot be denied is that this judgment firmly acknowledged, if not established, as unchallengeable, the right to the Nigerian State to rob people of their hard earned monies. Show me the laws of a state and I will show you their ethos. With such laws in our code up till today, is it any difficult to see where the Nigerians penchant for greed and corruption comes from? If the state can so unscrupulously grab, rob and extort, then, why can't the citizens do the same? Is it not pitiable that the State can pretend to be armoured against same graft? Is it any wonder, that the cardinal goal of office holders in Nigeria is to loot, extort and rob the citizens in any conceivable way? Chief Enwezor had endured the robbery of his £26,659 (Twenty Six Thousand, Six Hundred and Fifty Nine pounds) by the Nigerian State. My own parents equally endured the same robbery of their over £7,000 (Seven Thousand Pounds) by the Nigerian State. And so do other Biafrans.

But it never ended there! In the present day Nigeria any time I (like all others) use my ATM, the Nigeria State pilfers N50.00 from me. But everybody has embraced State theft as proper ethos that no one complains! Even, oil, which God intends to be a blessing to the nation has been converted to a veritable tool for extorting from the citizens.

The saddest story about Nigeria is that both the State and her citizens have lost the ability to be ashamed of anything at all! And accordingly, it is the law when electoral officers forgo the counting or computations of votes and fill up their Return Forms to declare abysmal losers as ultimate winners; It is the law when Nigerian Custom men lay siege on Easterners journeying home for Christmas celebrations and rob them of their cars on the ground that cars registered in Lagos, and had been in use for years in Lagos, are uncustomed goods. And, of course, in the Nigerian brand of benevolence, they will grant bail to the victim, his wife and Children, after extorting all the money they have. It is the law! After all, the man should be grateful for not spending eternity in the custom cell or as awaiting trial detainee in any of the many dungeons in Nigeria termed prisons.

Yes, It is the law when the Nigerian Army declares Operation Python Dance, and make a career of molesting and extorting civilians. It is the law when Nigerian soldiers devoid of any sense of honour mow down defenceless civilians - men women and Children- because they are what GOD created them to be. It is the law when the state through the EFCC tag any person as corrupt and embark on immediate despoliation of the individual; It is the law when Lai Mohammed in a characteristic Nigerian solemnity announce to the Nation that their patriotic President in his sick bed in far away London hospital is only taking made in Nigeria medications. Nigerian patriotism is indeed spectacular!

It is the law, when Judges who give judgments that offend the whims of the power holders are raided in the dead of the Night, spirited out and subjected to mock trial. It is the law!

The list is endless.

In fact, In Nigeria anything can be the law, once the government has the power to enforce it. The unscrupulousness to enforce it is always assured.

The compelling truth is that Nigeria is a dire jungle. The sooner everybody that bears the burden of its citizenship is liberated, the better.